RFK Jr. lied to Congress about 2019 trip to Samoa, according to documents obtained by The Guardian, AP

Documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press indicate that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lied to Congress when he said that his 2019 visit to Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines.”

The records were recently released by the U.S. Department of State in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Reporters Committee attorneys filed on behalf of the AP and reporter Michelle Smith. The newly disclosed documents include a letter in which Kennedy told Samoan officials ahead of his visit that he wanted to study the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in the Pacific island nation. 

In the January 2019 letter, which mentions the word vaccine or vaccination eight times, Kennedy suggested that manufacturing issues with MMR vaccines may have led to the deaths of two children who had received the shots, The Guardian and the AP reported on Thursday. He proposed having his team at the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense “conduct detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines.”

The letter offers the clearest evidence to date that Kennedy did not tell Congress the truth about his visit to Samoa during confirmation hearings to appoint him as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

It comes months after previous document disclosures stemming from the FOIA lawsuit fueled exclusive reporting by The Guardian and the AP suggesting that Kennedy’s “concerns about vaccine safety motivated the visit.” That reporting prompted three members of Congress and the governor of Hawaii, a medical doctor who responded to the epidemic in Samoa, to accuse Kennedy of lying to Congress.

In response to the latest revelations, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy now leads, told The Guardian and the AP that Kennedy’s visit to Samoa “was unrelated to vaccines.” 

“Any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory,” the spokesperson added.

According to The Guardian and the AP, Kennedy was not under oath during the two confirmation hearings. However, it is a crime to provide material false testimony to Congress, though it is rarely prosecuted, the news outlets reported.

Kennedy’s trip to Samoa, where he reportedly met with its prime minister, anti-vaccine activists, and a U.S. embassy staff member, drew renewed scrutiny after he announced his bid for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. 

While Kennedy has continued to deny responsibility for the measles outbreak, Samoan officials have accused him of spreading anti-vaccine misinformation that contributed to the epidemic, which affected thousands and killed 83 people, mostly young children.

In 2023, Smith, then a reporter for the AP, submitted a FOIA request to the State Department seeking records related to Kennedy’s visit and the U.S. embassy staff’s response to the country’s low vaccination rates. But the request languished for nearly two years without a substantive response. 

On behalf of the AP and Smith, Reporters Committee attorneys sued the State Department for the records in July. The government has since turned over batches of records on a monthly basis. 

The AP and Smith are represented in this FOIA case by Reporters Committee attorneys Adam Marshall and Gunita Singh and legal fellow Rachel Seller.

Check out reporting from The Guardian and the AP to learn more about the newly released records.